


Fall

by holysmotez



Series: Remake Deleted Scenes [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VII Remake - Fandom
Genre: Deleted Scenes, F/M, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy VII Remake Spoilers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, chapter 17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holysmotez/pseuds/holysmotez
Summary: A short Cloti fanfic that plays in the gaps of what happened after a certain scene in Chapter 17.  Posted to tumblr originally but decided to add it here as well.  FF7 Remake Chapter 17 spoilers.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: Remake Deleted Scenes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732945
Comments: 22
Kudos: 191





	Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, spoilers.
> 
> This fic is about what happens after Tifa rescues Cloud from an express trip down from Shinra HQ, and while the rest of the fam deal with Arsenal. Please enjoy!

Gnarled steel digs into the meat of Tifa’s thigh. Her knuckles burn where her deathgrip had seized a jut of exposed rebar sticking from the bitten-through balcony. Sweat rolls off her brow, the droplets blown off by the harsh gusts whipping at them seventy stories up. Her every muscle aches with strain, and the incredible height is beyond dizzying. 

Cloud tightens his grip on her wrist. The ghost of a smile on his face mutes the heartbeat thudding in her ears.

She might have smiled, too, with relief and with something unnameable, but by then she was grimacing with renewed effort. She wasn’t about to let them dangle over certain death a moment longer than they have to. The weight of him, his sword, the awkward position, and gravity all fight against her. Combined, they test all of her hard years of martial arts discipline in order to summon enough strength for the task. She cries out as chi bursts in her veins like lava, and all the desperate willpower she held in reserve explodes from her. Everything hurts as she pulls, and she pulls. 

The blinding pain is worth it, though, when it brings Cloud close enough to the edge for him to swing his sword up and onto the balcony. His freed hand snaps to the concrete ledge so he can better support his own weight. The worst is over, but she continues to heave and pull and make sure he has all he needs to pull himself up and over to safety.

But like rivets giving way from a crowbar, something snaps. Cloud lurches up and over the ledge, a rough grunt leaves his lips, and just as abruptly, her vision fills with blue eyes, swirling with mako. 

Her hard, labored breathing catches in her throat. With their combined strength, he had all but barreled over her, and he rests planked over her in a reversal of when they had jumped the train. Like so many times since she had found him in Sector 7, the memory of that starry sky in Nibelheim intrudes over her every other thought. And when she feels the weight of him press into her, she gasps as if she had just came back from drowning.

He must have interpreted it as a gasp of pain, or perhaps only just then realized their embarrassing position, because in an instant he rolls off of her and onto his feet. He mumbles out a sorry while offering her his hand up.

“You okay?” he asks. He asks her that a lot. 

She still aches a bit all over, so she reaches for him, letting his firm hand help pull her to her feet. Oxygen returns to her lungs and she shakes out the residual tension in her muscles before nodding, and only then does he reach down and retrieve his sword. Returning it to its place on his back, he pauses to look out across Midgar. The wind howls now under the black sky, and his gaze seems distracted. Distant.

“Are you...?” she asks.

He snaps to her, jarred from his thoughts. Blinking and shaking his head, he replies, “Yeah. All thanks to you.”

“And Rufus?”

“He got away, and it’s about time we did the same.” 

She could not agree more. She all but dashes past him, eager to get away from this horrible place. “The others should be on their way down to the lobby. I hope they didn’t run into too much security,” she says as she passes him. 

“Probably nothing they can’t handle,” he says. His confidence almost reassures her.

She hears his heavy footfalls follow close behind her as they enter back into the President’s office, where she refuses to look towards the desk and towards the backdrop of memories that will no doubt plague her sleep should they survive the night. They exit his office and make it as far as the bottom of the winding staircase before his footsteps stutter to a halt.

“Hey, Tifa?” 

She halts then, too, turning about to face him. “What’s wrong?”

She can’t decipher exactly the expression on his face, but his eyes twitch as if he’s debating something with himself. She’s not sure if it’s just the leftover adrenaline still coursing through her body, but she has the strange, heart-skipping sensation as if she were back on that balcony, dangling over a dizzying drop. Where one step forward, one strong gust at her back, one irrational impulse towards that handsome face might cast her over into freefall.

Her stomach flips when he takes the first step forward. As if caught in a stop spell, she watches, frozen when he takes another, and another, until he meets her with the warm, solid wall of his chest, tucking his enchanted gaze over her shoulder and into her hair. 

His proximity, his heat, his scent tinged with mako, returns her to the night before in Aerith’s garden. The moment when she had been the one bold enough to close the distance and tuck her own overflowing eyes into him. Yet unlike that night, and despite his equally bold advance now, the arms that come around her shoulders are so gentle as to be almost timid.

“Just...I mean it. Thank you,” he says into the hair just above her ear. “For coming back for me.”

His words, his voice, his breath steal away her own as solid ground disappears beneath her.

She had checked the papers for his name everyday. Even as a teenager struggling for a livelihood in Midgar, her heart never stopped wondering. She never wanted to admit as to why. And when this same boy she had worried about - now a grown man - had turned up again at the Sector 7 train station, the pain living in her chest only got worse since. Yet she just couldn’t stay well enough away. She only tempted herself further and further towards the edge, and away from a place she knew she could never return to.

She didn’t want this to happen to her. Not right now, at least. Not when there’s so much she still doesn’t understand.

She realizes she’s trembling when Cloud pulls back from her, worry twisting his brow. “Tifa?”

She only just bites back a sob. It comes out as what she hopes passes for a laugh, although strangled. He pulls back further, releasing her but staying close. Before his frown deepens, she reaches up and brushes her hand across his shoulder saying, “Gotta look out for my brightest pupil.”

The corner of his lip curls up instead of down. Amused, “I’ll try not to take it for granted.”

This time, she does smile back, their easy friendship never failing to calm her stormy thoughts. “You better. Anyway, let’s go. I’m still worried about the others.”

Cloud nods as she turns again, and together they leave behind the wretched wake of destruction. As they pass into the elevator lobby, a new problem nags at her. She turns to him again and says, “Even if we escape HQ, I still can’t figure out how we’re going to get away from Midgar. What do you think?”

He touches a knuckle to his chin, and it’s not long before a thoughtful look passes over him. He says, “How’s your driving?”

Puzzled, it takes her a second before she alights at his meaning. “That’s right! Wasn’t there a showroom for cars on the bottom floors?”

Flashing that devious, knowing smirk of his, he dashes for the escalator, adding, “Bikes, too.”

She grins, following suit. Maybe like back on the balcony, there just wasn’t time left anymore to think about the fall. And like jumping off a moving train or into certain fate, maybe she could just deal in the moments of necessity as they come.

Yet as her gaze fixes on the spikes of his blond hair, a lingering throb of misgiving still remains.


End file.
